


Push Me, Pull You

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Christmas, Family, Happy Ending, Llamas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-23
Updated: 2009-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie wants a llama. Casey wants life to be easy. Dan wants ... what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Push Me, Pull You

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Laylee, Christmas 2006.

Charlie's doing a school report on South America. When the latest nanny (Sara? Or was that the previous one? Lisa seems to have stumbled upon some sort of back-alley black market in cloned nannies) drops him off at the studio, he proudly displays page after page of neat handwriting, clear diagrams, and careful, meticulous sketches of suspiciously cheerful-looking Peruvians in national costume.

"No Paddington Bear?" Dan teases. Charlie gives him a hard stare worthy of Paddington himself, and doesn't dignify this with a reply.

Natalie pokes her head round the door, makes 'Oooh!' and 'Aaaah!' sounds over Charlie's handiwork. "You ought to take Charlie to see the llamas, Casey," she announces. Casey doesn't know it, but the glare he directs at her is a perfect match for his son's.

"In Peru?" he enquires, with only the most muted of sarcasm.

"No," Jeremy chimes in. "In Jersey." And when Casey only continues to look at him, unsure whether this is a joke, he goes on, "Seriously. They breed llamas there. As pets, and for their wool – I'll show you." He pulls the laptop towards him, types in a few words, then spins the screen so that Casey can see.

Damned if he's not right. They _do_ have llamas in New Jersey. _Lots_ of llamas, in an astonishing number of locations.

Who knew?

Well, who besides Natalie and Jeremy. Who have, apparently, been to one of the farms on a visit – "You can pet them, and take them out on a trek …"

Charlie's face, predictably at this point, is alight with longing and anticipation. "Can we, Dad?" he doesn't-quite-beg. "Can we go see the llamas?"

Casey looks at his shining eyes and doesn't have the heart to say no. He doesn't even have the heart to correct the 'can we' to 'may we'.

"Sure," he agrees, with a readiness he's sure he'll regret later. "When's your report due?"

Some complicated logistics ensue. It's eventually determined that the only possible time that Charlie's day with Casey and Casey's day off coincide before the report has to be handed in is next Saturday. Which is convenient, as there's no show that day – the whole evening's scheduling's been pre-empted for some ludicrously premature Christmas special, the details of which Casey has not bothered to absorb. That means that Casey can volunteer Dan to do the driving, thus gaining a back-up babysitter, some more-or-less adult company for himself, and saving on car hire all in one handy package.

"It'll do you good to get out of town," he tells Dan.

"To _Jersey_," Dan says. He doesn't sound impressed.

"To a llama farm!" Casey reminds him. "That's gotta be something special!"

Too late, he notes the unfortunate rhyme. He's going to live to regret this, he realises.

He's right. Jeremy is recruited to organise the online booking, as Casey feels this task is beyond his capabilities, and Dan puts the intervening days to good use, dreaming up new 'drive Casey mad' games to play with Charlie in the car. Sure enough, as Charlie settles into the back seat, and Casey leans over him to check he's properly strapped in ("Daaaaaaad!!"), Dan half-turns around and says, over his shoulder, "Hey, Charlie? This llama farmer? You think his life's maybe filled with drama?"

Charlie giggles, and Casey knows he's doomed.

The two of them manage to keep it up for miles.

"He's got a nice view – it's a real panorama."

"He gets depressed, though. He's a self-harmer." (Surely Charlie's too young to know about that kind of stuff? Casey blames his mother, and makes a note to say something next time he sees Lisa.)

"Yeah, but he's on Xanax now, these days he's a lot calmer."

"He gets his ham imported from Parma."

"He's got a cousin in India. He's a snake-charmer. With good karma."

"He likes to listen to Bananarama …"

Casey makes another note to get back his Time-Life _Sounds of the '80s_ CDs and ban Charlie from his record collection.

They leave the city behind; as they turn off the Interstate, they're in the heart of the country. To prove it, the road they need to follow to the farm turns out to be not so much a road as a rutted track of dried mud. Dan's SUV takes it in stride, and Casey makes yet another mental note: get off Dan's back about his gas-guzzling ways. At least, for as long as he's planning on using Dan as a free taxi service.

They come to a latched gate. Charlie jumps out and swings it open, then closed again, and hops back in for the last short drive up a gravelled pathway and into an open patch of scrubby grass, several hundred yards from the nearest visible buildings, where another couple of vehicles are already pulled in. Dan and Charlie pour out of the car in two identical frenetic flurries of limbs. Casey climbs out more slowly and stiffly, feeling, as he always does around these two, at least twice his real age.

He takes a moment to stand and breathe in the country air – fresh, pure and clear, but with a base note of something acrid and peculiar that he suspects owes its provenance to llamas – and to admire the scenery. It's been a mild winter so far, and the trees still retain their fall colours, a chromatic rhapsody of russets and golds. Charlie, city born and bred, barely spares their surroundings a glance, and Dan who, for all his talk, is not a city boy at all, takes it for granted; he grew up in a place very like this one. Casey's own childhood home was pleasant enough – a townhouse with a white picket fence, a yard and a front porch, neat flower beds and a swingset, the all-American dream made real – but grandeur like this had been reserved for vacations, summer days spent hiking through national parks and squabbling with his sister. He wonders how it would be to live like this all the time, if the sense of wonder would fade with custom. Or if, like Dan, you would simply never notice it at all.

There are four or five cars pulled up in the yard now, their occupants standing uncertainly by, stamping feet and swinging arms. Two young women who Casey can most generously describe as 'sturdy' are approaching from the outbuildings. They're dressed identically in brown cord jeans and big, bulky, hairy sweaters, which leads Dan to whisper, evilly, "I thought llamas had _four_ legs?" But the girls' smiles, as they greet their visitors, are sweet and open, and Dan, properly ashamed of himself, is nothing but his customary charm in return.

In a ten-minute lecture, they learn that what they are about to meet are not, in fact, llamas but 'alpaca' and 'suri'; that their value is in their wool and in breeding fees (which seems to Casey to make the whole business incredibly self-limiting and risky); that, popular rumour notwithstanding, the llamas spit only at one another, and only in certain circumstances – "But best not get in the way, all the same!" Debra, the slightly shorter one with the pigtails, adds perkily.

Induction over, the party is deemed ready for an audience with the llamas. They trudge the short distance to the barn, and are formally introduced. Casey looks into huge, melting, dark eyes fringed by unfeasibly long lashes, runs a hand through a thick, silky coat, and is entranced. "Hey," he murmurs. "Hey, beautiful."

The llama-alpaca-suri turns her soulful gaze on him and bleats plaintively.

"This is Calinda," Debra tells him, popping up by his elbow. Almost literally by his elbow; that's about as high as the top of her head reaches. "She's our star breeding dam. Aren't you?" she asks Calinda, who nods her head in intelligent agreement, and reaches out to nibble on Debra's fingers. "She's getting a little old now, this'll be the last year we send her out to mate. But we hope she'll still be with us a good long while yet. Her daughters would miss her, and so would we."

Casey can see Dan and Charlie moving between the pens, petting and stroking and cooing. They're obviously as smitten as he is. So it should come as no surprise when, as they're headed out to the pastures to meet the males, Charlie comes bouncing along by his side to ask, "Dad? Can I have a llama?"

Casey laughs. "In your apartment? I don't think your mom would be too pleased about that."

"Nooooo," Charlie says, with the patience and forbearing all children reserve for the aged, infirm and terminally stupid or, to put it another way, their parents. "When we move upstate. When Mom and Ted get married."

Which is the first Casey has heard of any of this. He stands, stricken, as the rest of the party moves on, staring in shock at the son he had thought …

He'd thought, when Lisa threw him out, that he would still be able to be Charlie's father. He'd thought she would leave him that much. It's been two years; he'd been lulled into what he now sees is a false sense of security.

Now he's going to lose this, too.

Dan's turned back; he's at his side, hand wrapped around Casey's elbow. "Casey? You okay?"

Casey shakes his head, trying to ground himself. He can't fall apart, not here, not like this. Not in public.

Not ever.

"I'm fine, Danny," he says, carefully even. "Just getting my breath." He turns his professional, showbiz smile on Dan. "Let's go meet the boys!"

The boys turn out to be as charming as their lady friends: a little bigger, but every bit as affectionate and friendly, perhaps even more so. "We don't let them have visitors when they're rutting," Tammi explains, with what Casey feels is unnecessary candour; if Charlie asks what 'rutting' means, _Tammi_ can be the one to explain, thank you very much. Fortunately, it appears to pass him by; he's far too thrilled at being allowed to lead Caesar, a big, shaggy, black-fleeced alpaca, around the pen at the end of a piece of rope, to pay much attention to anything else going on in the world.

The ride home, mercifully for everyone, is relatively quiet. Charlie, worn out by a day of unaccustomed exercise in equally unaccustomed fresh air, is nodding off to sleep, only perking up once to make an appalling pun ("Danny? If a llama leaves home, do you think he says, 'Alpaca bag'?"), and Dan is intent on the fast-darkening roads. They drop Charlie off first. Casey had intended to go in with him, have things out with Lisa, had already planned the entire argument in his head, and is considerably deflated when, on being asked, Charlie tells him that Lisa's out with Ted tonight, there's only Sonja (Sonja! Not Sara!) at home. Grumpily, he resigns himself to being driven back to his own apartment for a night of brooding and fretting and –

"You're coming up?" he asks Dan, surprised. It's a redundant question; Dan has parked the car and followed Casey into the elevator.

"If I don't," Dan retorts, "you're going to spend the whole evening worrying about whatever it is that's eating at you, and tomorrow you'll have bags under your eyes that Santa could use for gift sacks. And, trust me," he adds, with not a little bitterness, "Allyson and Dana will somehow find some way to make that _my_ fault. So," he goes on, as the apartment door closes behind them, "Spill. What is it? If it's just that you're allergic to llamas, I'll leave you alone, but if it's anything else, then you're stuck with me. And you might as well get me a beer," he finishes, and plunks himself down on Casey's couch and starts settling himself comfortably.

Ordinarily, Casey would laugh. Dan has this knack of making himself at home wherever he finds himself. But tonight he doesn't feel much like laughing. He fetches the beer anyway, pops the lids, and passes one to Dan.

"Lisa's getting married again," he says. He thinks it comes out calm and rational.

Dan just raises an eyebrow. "Okay." He waits for Casey to say something else and, when he doesn't, goes on, "So, I guess that's a blow, yeah? She's moved on, and you … not so much."

"I've moved on!" Casey says sharply. "I've dated women!"

Dan's expression says, _yeah, and look how well that went_, but he doesn't say it. "You knew it was going to happen someday?" he says, making it into only half a question. "I mean – you never thought … you never thought you and she would get back together …?"

"God forbid!" Casey says, more vehemently yet. "No. But … Charlie says they're moving house."

Dan catches on quickly. "She can't take Charlie out of state - ?"

"Upstate, he says. I don't know where, or how far. That's why I wanted to talk to her tonight. I …"

_He's my kid. He used to live in the same house as me; he was never more than two rooms away. Now it's half a city. If it's going to be half a state, how do I stand that?_

But he says, out loud, "I guess, if it's going to happen, now's a good time. He'll be changing school this year anyhow, so …"

"Good _time?!_" Dan's on his feet, eyes blazing. "Good _time?!_ When you gave up the chance to work in California because you wouldn't be apart from Charlie? You're just going to let her do this, Casey?!"

Casey shrugs, already admitting defeat. Ted's a lawyer – what is it with the women he's loved and lawyers? – what chance does he stand of putting up a fight?

For a moment, Dan stands so close, so much fury in his eyes, that Casey honestly thinks he's going to lash out, and backs away, raising an arm to form a barrier between them.

"You don't just let the things you love slip away," Dan says instead, and his voice, still angry, is hushed and anguished. "You never do that, Casey. You let them go, and they'll never come back again. Take it from me, I know." And he slams down his beer bottle, snatches up his coat, and is gone through the door before Casey can think to ask –

_Danny? What was it that you let go?_

*

Morning comes, and a phone call to Lisa clears the air: Charlie misunderstood. The house in the country is for weekends and holidays; of course Casey will still see Charlie, whenever he wants, that hasn't changed.

"God, Casey," Lisa says, and her voice is tired; she no longer considers Casey worth her anger, "I know you think I'm a bitch, but give me credit for thinking of _Charlie_'s feelings, at least. He loves his father, don't ask me why. Do you honestly think I'd try to split the two of you up? And, no," she adds, more wearily yet, "He can't have a llama, what in the world made you tell him he could?"

Casey's too relieved to protest his innocence, although the next time he sees Charlie he is going to need to have a few very strong words on the subject of playing off one parent against another. And also on the subject of not scaring his poor father into a premature grave.

"I suppose it's too much to ask for you to wish us happy?" Lisa asks. There's a note in her voice that Casey hasn't heard from her in years: anxious, needful. It is, he finds, no effort at all for him to wish her and Ted all the happiness in the world. He even – mostly – means it.

And that leaves Dan. Who lifts up his head as Casey walks into their office, just in time for the noon rundown, casts him an absent smile, and then returns to whatever it is on his laptop that's keeping him so thoroughly absorbed. Could be a breaking item of news; could be a complicated Excel spreadsheet. Could be an exceptionally tricky game of Spider solitaire. Whatever it is, it's keeping him from meeting Casey's eyes.

Rundown, research, rundown, script, rundown, rewrite, rundown, show. There's no time to talk – or, at least, none that Dan is acknowledging. And, show over, he's getting his coat and heading for the door without even taking the time to change into his street clothes.

Two can play at that game. Casey has a key to the executive elevator. With no stops on the way down, he's in the parking lot way before Dan, leaning up against the still-muddy Subaru, arms crossed, as Dan comes toward him, his steps slowing as he registers Casey's presence.

"If you need a ride home," Dan says evenly, "All you had to do was ask." He clicks the doors unlocked.

"I'm asking now," Casey says, and slides into the passenger seat. Dan hesitates a moment, then seems to shrug, gets in, and starts the engine.

"Or we could go to your place," Casey adds. "Up to you. You want the home turf?"

Dan slams on the brakes. "I don't want to have this conversation at all, Casey, did you not get that?"

"I got it," Casey says. "I'm just not sure what it is I'm getting."

Dan tips his head back against the neckbrace, casts his eyes upwards, and laughs softly. "Oh, don't I know it," he says, softer still. He turns to Casey. "I don't want to say it, Casey, and you sure as hell don't want to hear it. So why don't we just leave it alone, and carry on the way we always have?"

"Because," Casey tells him, "I never knew there was an 'it'. And now I do know – "

"Yeah, yeah," Dan says. He straightens up, puts the car in gear, and they move forward. They drive in silence, out of the parking garage, down the side road, into a line of traffic where they meet the inevitable snarl. Stalled, the sounds of engines and carhorns and yelling in many languages all around them, Casey barely hears as Dan says quietly, "It was you, of course. I don't know how you never knew; I wasn't exactly subtle. The first time I met you, I thought – this is it, this is the one. I was so crazy about you. All you had to do was look my way, and I'd … well, if you really want to know, I had to take a lot of extra bathroom breaks, back in those days." He glances sidelong at Casey, his crooked grin just visible. "Still do, sometimes. Too much information?"

Casey can only stare. Dan nods, as if confirming something to himself. "And then Lisa stopped by the station. _This is my fiancée_, you said to everyone, so happy and so proud. And that was that. I just stepped back, I didn't even try. Didn't try to argue when you took that job on the other coast. _We'll keep in touch_, you said, but what that meant was that _I'd_ keep in touch, and sometimes you'd answer. Then you asked me to join you in Texas, and I thought … I hoped …" He stops talking, shakes his head sadly. "Never mind. I was an idiot. Still am. But I've got used to it. You're just one of those things. Like when I was a kid, I used to see the stars on the neighbours' Christmas trees, so beautiful, and so out of reach. If I wanted to, I could have a Christmas tree now. There's no law against it, that I know." He thinks. "Maybe Mosaic law. I'd have to check with Jeremy. But, the point is – I don't. I've grown out of that. You're my friend, Casey. That's good enough for me. If …" His hands tighten on the steering wheel. "If you're still my friend?"

Casey has sat, transfixed, listening to the sound of Dan's voice washing over him, unable to speak or move, or even think; watching Dan's profile, his silhouette. Watching, and wondering, seeing his world shatter all around him and reform itself into a new pattern, one that makes perfect, incontrovertible sense.

Yes, Dan is an idiot. He's not the only one.

"Just drive, Danny," Casey says, softly. "Your place or mine. It doesn't matter."

Dan glances at him, sidelong, questioning. Casey curses the public place; Dan's a celebrity, couldn't he at least have the decency to get a car with tinted windows? He reaches out a hand, gently presses Dan's arm.

"We can talk when we get home, Danny. Or – " And Casey smiles, suddenly eager for what the rest of this night might bring, "Or not talk. Not for a while. We can save the talking for after."

Dan glances over again, and his answering smile is dazzling in the streetlights' glare.

And, over their heads, the Christmas lights of Broadway glimmer and twinkle with all the promises of a thousand years.

***


End file.
